


Time for Coffee

by Straccia_Tella



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Pining, curtis has a crush but is denying it, curtis is pining hard, felt like more scenes with these two would be adorable, like there's one curse word so careful?, shiro's ptsd is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 20:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18881056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straccia_Tella/pseuds/Straccia_Tella
Summary: Curtis meets up with Shiro after the arm wrestling tournament with a quick question.





	Time for Coffee

 Right after the excitement of the arm wrestling tournament was over, Curtis watched as the paladins crowded around Shiro, still carrying him on their shoulders as they paraded him out of the tent. The champion’s belt somehow managed to stay wrapped around his left arm as his friends jostled him around, and he was laughing along with them. He rarely saw the captain look that happy on the ship, and was glad that festival managed to unwind him a bit.

 

 He wasn’t sure if he could say the same for himself as his nerves pinched every muscle in his body, causing him to stiffly approach the group.

 “Captain!” He called and saw Shiro’s head managed to turn towards his voice. “Can I have a moment of your time?”

 

 Shiro nodded as he asked his friends to let him down, and they obliged after tossing him in the air one last time.

 “We’re gonna hit the food stalls next, meet you there?” Pidge asked and Shiro ruffled the hat on the green paladins’ head.

 “Keith’s paying!” Hunk declared as he began to speed walk

 

 “Hey! Why do  _ I  _ have to pay?”

 

 “I’ll never be able to find out the ending of that Clear Day ride because  _ someone  _ decided to cut a hole in the wall with their bayard!”

 

 Lance’s eyebrow lifted incredulously at this new bit of information.

 

 “Keith did  _ what _ ??”

 

 “Not now, Lance!”

 

 “Yeah, Keith should pay. That seems fair,” Pidge chimed in and began trying to match Hunk’s pace.

 

 “Hey, wait!” Keith yelled.

 

 Coran zoomed passed the remaining paladins clutching his yalmor trophy close to his chest.

 

  “Last one there is a rotten bamboozla-hopper!”

 

 “And last one’s definitely paying!” Hunk added, his voice becoming more distant.

 This seemed to incentivize the red and blue paladin who gave each other a momentary glance before sprinting after the others. Which left Shiro and Curtis.

 Not being able to stand the silence, Curtis decided to just start talking. 

 “That was an impressive show you put on, Captain. Or should we start calling you ‘champion’?”

 He noticed a slight twitch in Shiro’s face as his skin seemed to instantly pale and Curtis’ mind immediately backpedaled  _ hard _ . He suddenly remembered Matt Holt talking about a Galra arena where Shiro was forced to fight to survive, hence how he lost his arm, got his scar and was called the “champion”. Now he was worried he may have triggered an unpleasant memory for his captain. 

 “Shit-! Captain, I’m so, so sorry. That was incredibly inappropriate, I forgot all about that!”

 Shiro seemed to recover quickly as he put his hand up to calm Curtis down. 

 “Don’t be. I guess in the heat of the moment, I was able to tune out the audience and focus on just trying to win. Of course my PTSD isn’t completely gone, but I’ve been getting better.”

 

 Curtis nodded, but couldn’t help wondering what kind of experience Shiro must have had in space all that time. What he had to do to survive, and manage to crash on earth a mere two years later after he and the Holts were declared dead. He couldn’t imagine what kind of mental strain Shiro and the other paladins had gone through. He felt the heavy and sour feeling of guilt grow in the pit of his stomach and he began to worry that he would slip up again. 

 

 Shiro noticed this, and thankfully amended Curtis’ problem. 

 

 “So… did you watch the whole match?” Shiro asked, smiling gently steering them away from the previous conversation. “Personally, I didn’t think I’d make it that far.”

 “I was actually with the MFE kids earlier at a shooting gallery, and everyone was making this commotion about an arm wrestling competition. So I decided to go check it out,” Curtis paused as he thoughtfully put a finger under his chin. “I think I arrived around your fifth round? I can’t remember which alien you were up against, but it was amazing. A lot of the other ATLAS crew members were there as well. I haven’t cheered that loudly since watching my football team during the semi-finals on tv a few years back.”

 

 “Thanks,” Shiro put his hand up to cover his mouth, pretending to look around suspiciously, “Did you happen to make any side bets with anyone?”

 

 Curtis laughed at the joke.

 

 “Unfortunately no. But if I did, I would have still bet on you.”

 

 Shiro smiled at the compliment which gave Cutis a warm fuzzy feeling in his stomach. He still wasn’t sure what he should do with that, or how he should approach it. It was hard just approaching Shiro without being blinded by all of his achievements and remembering how far up in the ranks he was compared to the others. 

 “I’m not trying to be impatient here, but wasn’t there something you wanted to ask me? Or were you really just here to talk about the arm wrestling competition?”

 Curtis gave himself a moment to wonder how many times his brain was going to stop functioning around this man in one day before he started to look like a buffoon. He shook his head and tried to speak as clearly as possible. 

 

 “I was just wondering… Would you like to have coffee together, sometime? Maybe? With me?”

 

 He had this conversation all planned out in his head, but he still managed to stumble when he actually had to articulate it. Classic Curtis…

 

 He watched as the captain gave it a thought, his eyebrows raised up as if he wasn’t sure how to go around this invitation. Unfortunately, this started to make him panic.

 

 Oh no. He was losing traction.

 

 He had to do something. 

 

 He had to make this less awkward,  _ now _ .

 

 “I mean, you don’t have to, if it’s not your thing, and the coffee on ATLAS isn’t that great anyway. It’s too bad Colleen couldn’t grown any coffee beans, right?”

 

_ Saved?  _ His brain helpfully supplied.

 

 “I actually can’t remember the last time I had coffee. After my time under the Galra, I had do something else to help wake me up. It’s kinda been ingrained in my daily routine now...”

 

 “Like what?”

 

 “Doing push-ups or morning stretches,” Shiro stated matter-of-factly.

 

 Curtis tried his best not to laugh, but he was betrayed and a small snort erupted from his nose. Thankfully, Shiro wasn’t offended and he even seemed to flush slightly as he grinned.

 

 “Yeah, yeah, go ahead, laugh. Get it out there. The others have always said I was like an old man, and the new hair definitely isn’t helping.”

 

 Curtis managed to reign in his giggles and cleared his throat.

 

 “No, it’s not that, it just seemed like a very…  _ you  _ thing to do. I meant no disrespect, Captain.”

 

 Shiro outstretched his robotic arm towards Curtis, and he watched it float there for a moment. He wondered why he couldn’t just have a full mechanical arm. It seemed a bit more practical than having a floating limb, but felt it wasn’t his place to judge others tastes in prosthetic. 

 

 “No need for formalities, call me Shiro.”

 

 Curtis smiled as he grasped the hand and shook it.

 

 “Curtis.”

 “Nice to meet you, Curtis.”

 

 The two jolted apart when they heard an inhumane screech coming from afar, covering their ears as the sound reverberated painfully in their eardrums. When they recovered Shiro could only rub his temples. 

 

 “I’m guessing that was Coran’s infamous yalmor call,” Shiro muttered. 

 

 “So that’s what that noise was earlier… And I thought the animals on earth had messed up calls,” Curtis added, hoping the ringing in his ears would quiet down in a few seconds. “I’m guessing you should go meet up with them, just to be sure they’re not getting into any trouble.”

 He had taken up enough of his time, and he should probably look around the festival a bit more just to see what the others were up to. As Curtis made to leave, Shiro stepped forward. 

 “Wait. Are you going anywhere else right now?”

 Curtis thought for a moment before answering. 

 

 “Not really? There wasn’t much I wanted to see, and I was just following everyone around.”

 

 “Well, then why don’t you come along with me and join the others? I could use another hand to help wrangle in the others if needed.”

 

 “Can’t your floating arm catch them if they run too far?” Curtis joked, but he never really saw how far that thing could float away. It’d be interesting to find out, but it wasn’t one of the seven wonders of the world that he needed solved immediately.

 

 “It would just be good to have extra hands just in case,” Shiro laughed. “Plus, while I may not want coffee, I can treat us some dinner later.”

 

Curtis’ face flushed deeply when he heard the word  ‘treat’ and ‘dinner’ in the same sentence. He had to remind himself that this was just a friendly outing and not a date. He’d have to be sure to make that clear to Commander Holt or anyone else who teased him about it. 

 

 “Sure, I’d like that. Never had alien food up ‘til now.”

 

 “Just be careful if they serve you stuff that looks like goop. Half of the time, you might be better off eating rotten eggs.”

 

 Curtis laughed as he followed Shiro and they easily found the paladins bickering in front of a food stall. After that, he spent the rest of the night walking with Shiro and admiring the stalls that were set up for the festival, with the two of them sampling foods, staring at the odd prizes and trying to figure out the different alien cultures they encountered. When all of the Clear Day events wrapped up, it was back to the ATLAS with everyone going back to their beds and wishing the others good night. 

 

 The next morning, Shiro had walked by Curtis and asked him out for a cup of coffee. 

 The butterflies in his stomach grew more numerous after that. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finally getting back into the groove, and I literally just wrote this all out with little stops. I'll try and go back to finish my Misadventures of a Marmoran and Human series so I can mark that as done, and expect a few more one shots from VLD and TDP!
> 
> If you want to see previews of my fics before they get posted here, please consider following my Instagram:  
> Instagram [ rin_drawings](https://www.instagram.com/rin_drawings/)  
> You can also find me on my Tumblr [@n-trace](http://n-trace.tumblr.com/) if you want to chat


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